The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Is Egypt the Next Sudan?

by Michael Armanious

Is El-Erian's strategy really to bring the Jews back, or to push the Copts out – a topic he carefully avoided mentioning?

In celebration of Egypt's new Islamic constitution, President Morsi
went before the newly assembled upper house of the parliament – the
Shura Council – and delivered another one of his enthusiastic and
disconnected-from-reality speeches. In response to Egypt's economic
troubles and high unemployment, especially among the youth (over 30%),
he reminded the Egyptians that "God is the Provider" and because they
are true believers, one day they will have their God-given income.

Morsi, who spoke to the Shura on December 30, is apparently unaware
that other cultures such as the Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese have all
achieved economic success despite the fact that they have different
belief systems from his. Those cultures were built on the value of hard
work, education and modernization. Perhaps God helps those who help
themselves, whether they believe in Him or not.

He strongly downplayed Egypt's debts, saying that the debt is just
87% of the country's Gross Domestic Product for 2012 -- a figure most
economists would consider catastrophic.

Morsi also gave his administration credit for the increase in the
number of ships that passed through the Suez Canal, and the number of
visitors in 2012 to the Sinai resort of Sharm El Sheikh. Additionally,
he publicly (and shamelessly) took a page from one of his political
opponents, former presidential candidate General Ahmed Shafik: Morsi
called for the economic development of land near the Suez Canal. Shafik,
by the way, fled Egypt within days of losing the election in June 2012.

Morsi's speech was discredited soon after by experts and critics, who
mocked him for taking credit for the flow of goods through the Suez
Canal and for taking, without credit, an idea from his opponent's
campaign agenda.

Essam El-Erian, Morsi's adviser and the vice president of the Freedom
and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, is already
working along these lines. He is asking Jews to come back to the
country, from which they were driven in the 1950s. In a televised
interview, El-Erian urged Egyptian Jews living in Israel to come back to
Egypt and contribute to the rebuilding of Egypt.

Nonetheless, Mr. El-Erian failed to mention that in the late 1940s
and the early 50s, the Muslim Brotherhood, active since 1928, was
responsible for killing and wounding hundreds of Egyptian Jews; for
bombing the Jewish quarter in Cairo; and in an effort to drive Jews out
of Egypt, for firebombing many Jewish business, such as the Cicurel and
Gatenio department stores in downtown Cairo. Further, they sent
thousands of "Fedayeen" to fight Jews in the 1948 Arab-Israel war.

It important to note that El-Erian's invitation was directed solely
at the Egyptian Jews living in Israel – not at Jews living in Europe or
in United States.

Under questioning from his interviewers, El-Erian admitted that his
invitation was just a tactic to achieve the Muslim Brotherhood's
long-term objective of emptying Israel of Jews to make room for the
Palestinians to return to their homes. He also predicted the demise of
Israel in the very near future.

Why would Egyptian Jews come back to Egypt – the most populous
country in the Middle East where more than 65% of the population is
illiterate, where nearly half of the people live under or just above the
poverty line, and other minorities are now facing elimination?

Is El-Erian's strategy really to invite the Jews back, or to push the Copts out -- a topic he carefully avoided mentioning?

There was not a word about the hostility and the discrimination
directed at Egypt's Coptic Christian minority. In just the past two
years, after the January 25 uprising and the rise of both the Muslim
Brotherhood and the Salafists, attacks on Christians and churches
sharply increased. Churches have been burned. On October 9, 2011,
armoured military vehicles ran over peaceful Coptic protesters, killing
more than 20. Would Jews really fare any better?

In response to El-Erian's invitation, other members of Muslim
Brotherhood came up with their own ideas of how to deal with the Jews in
Israel. Sheikh Youssef El-Badri suggested that instead of inviting them
back to Egypt, why not just mobilize Jihadists to kill the Jews there?

It is unlikely that Egyptian Jews would respond positively to
El-Erian's invitation, but they should know that the new constitution is
intended to create an Islamic state in Egypt that severely restricts
minority rights. Its drafting committee was controlled by extreme
Islamists. On November 22, 2012 Sheikh Yasser Borhamy, a leading member
of the constitution drafting committee, said in videotaped meeting with
Salafi scholars and preachers that the "constitution imposes complete
restrictions that have never before been imposed by any Egyptian
constitution" and "places restrictions on freedom of thought,
expression, and creativity."

Sheikh Borhamy's video confirmed that this constitution was created
for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood and hard-line Islamist
factions intent on creating in Egypt an Islamic state.

Borhamy has called for the legalization of child marriage: a girl as
young as three can get married because this what Allah said.

On the day Borhamy made his comments about the constitution, Morsi
granted himself sweeping powers, including the power to safeguard the
constitution drafting committee.

In the same video, Borhamy also thanked another member of the
drafting committee, Islamist lawyer Selim al-Awa, for his legal tactics
that allowed the Islamists to "deceive" the Christians and liberal
members, and pass the constitution.

Al-Awa also helped to write Sudan's constitution, a document that
smoothed the way for the Sharia law and enabled the hard-line Islamists
in Sudan to stay in power for decades. Violence against Christians began
in the 1980s, with the ascendancy of with Omar Al-Bashir, even before
the more widely known violence in Darfur in the past decade. This
Sharia-driven constitution made life impossible for Christians and
Animists in that country, and eventually, in 2011, led to the secession
of South Sudan. If this is what happened in Sudan, can you imagine what,
in a few years, will happen to Egypt's Christians?

Mr. Al-Awa made a claim on Al-Jazeera in 2010 that Coptic churches
and monasteries in Egypt had stockpiles of weapons in order to kill
Muslims, and called for the state to inspect them. Following Mr.
Al-Awa's claim, jihadists attacked and burned churches.

It appears that the Western media has been fooled by the Muslims Brotherhood's rosy messages. Time Magazine considered naming Morsi its "Man of the Year" for 2012 because of his successful brokering of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Time either ignored or was unaware that Hamas and the
Islamists see this cease-fire not as a peace treaty, but as a temporary
truce or "hudna" that buys time for transferring the knowledge of how to
make long-range missiles from Iran to the Islamic fighters of Hamas.

Egypt now is completely controlled by Islamists and jihadists. Women
and Christians are oppressed; Egypt's media and judiciary are under
siege.

Whether they like it or not, Western leaders need to consider what
kind of relationship they will have with the Muslim Brotherhood and the
new Islamic state in Egypt.

Egypt's Islamist regime will not abrogate its treaty with Israel and start a war with the West -- at least not right away.

Many Islamists, including Sheik Mohammed Hassan, feel that it is in
Egypt's best interests to wait a while before cancelling the treaty.
Hassan spoke for these Islamists in 2011 when he said "It's not wise to
start talking about such a treaty and invite more enemies while we are
trying to build a country." For the short term, the Islamic regime will
regard the treaty signed 1979 as a hudna [cease-fire]. Under the
rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt will continue to take money from
the U.S. and provide support to Hamas in the Gaza Strip -- just like
Iran.

If one watches Morsi's videos from as recently as 2010 and 2011, it
is impossible not to understand the Muslim Brotherhood's jihadist
agenda.

If Western leaders wish to prevent a catastrophe, and to support the
Egyptians who oppose the mistreatment of women and the subjugation of
Egypt's Christian minority, they would be advised to move quickly. These
were the people who were at the forefront of the January 25 Revolution.
Although they started it, they will need Western help to wrest control
from the new autocratic system put in place by the Muslim Brotherhood.
NATO's involvement in the Middle East last year is an encouraging move.

Michael Armanious, a Coptic rights activist, blogs at The New Egypt. His writings have appeared in The Boston Herald, PJ Media, and The Commentator.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3536/egypt-sudanCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.